- Lizzie Widdicombe: France’s First Lady takes a tour of N.Y.U.
The other day, students in New York University’s visual-arts program received an e-mail advising them to be in their studios the following Monday afternoon. “They said that somebody famous was coming,” Robert Leonardi, a senior, recalled, “and that anything could happen.” A . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: The taxi-driver’s advocate.
On Houston Street at Avenue A the other day, a woman stuck out her hand to hail a taxi. It was cold and drizzly—hyper-competitive cab-hailing conditions—but she was likely to have better luck than most people. The woman was Bhairavi Desai, the executive director . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Occupy Wall Street, a culture of its own.
Visiting the site of Occupy Wall Street last week—a month after the protest began, and shortly before Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s threatened and aborted cleanup—was a bit like visiting a civilization at its peak: Paris in the twenties, Rome in the second century, or, at . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Kids get real on MTV’s “Skins.”
Six years ago, in Bristol, England, the television writer Bryan Elsley was brainstorming ideas for a new series—cop show? courtroom drama?—and he approached his nineteen-year-old son, Jamie Brittain, for advice. The response was tough but useful. “He basically told me all my ideas . . ....
- The Richest Woman in Europe
Born on October 21, 1922 in Paris, Bettencourt is a businesswoman, socialite, and French heiress. She is not only the richest woman in France and Europe but also the 21st richest person in the world. According to Forbes magazine, her estimated wealth for 2010 is twenty billion dollars....
- The Richest Woman in Europe
Born on October 21, 1922 in Paris, Bettencourt is a businesswoman, socialite, and French heiress. She is not only the richest woman in France and Europe but also the 21st richest person in the world. According to Forbes magazine, her estimated wealth for 2010 is twenty billion dollars....
- Books: “A Wicked Company.”
From the seventeen-fifties through the seventeen-eighties, Paul Thiry d’Holbach, a German baron brought up in France, presided over a Paris salon so brainy that one regular called him the “maître d’ of philosophy.” Adam Smith, Laurence Sterne, and David Hume were . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Books: “The Echo Chamber.”
This ambitious début novel is narrated by a woman with a remarkable but fading sense of hearing, hard at work on her life story in an attic in Scotland. She lingers over vivid and sometimes fantastical memories of her childhood, in Lagos in the nineteen-forties and fifties . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Helping the Elderly Avoid Falls
The risk factors for indoor and outdoor falls among the elderly differ, and not all falls may indicate poor health, a study shows....
- Hilton Als: James Rasin’s documentary, “Beautiful Darling.”
Candy Darling was a movie star’s dream of what a movie star should look like. Born in Forest Hills, Queens, in the nineteen-forties, Candy was raised as James Slattery in Massapequa Park, Long Island, during the nineteen-fifties, when the world wasn’t exactly ready for . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Anthony Lane: “The Artist” and “The Descendants” reviews.
What happens in “The Artist” is simple enough. A film star by the name of George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) streaks across the Hollywood heavens in the late nineteen-twenties, and then, with the advent of sound, gutters and falls. Only the love of a good woman has the . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: How top chefs fly with their knives.
Here’s a travel story that will send you back: Some years ago, Eric Ripert, the executive chef and co-owner of Le Bernardin, was returning to New York from Washington, D.C., where he’d cooked for a charity event. He put his carry-on bag through the . . ....
- The Beautiful and Talented Catherine Deneuve
Having appeared in over 100 films, Catherine Deneuve has been spoken of as a great beauty, and an incredible talent. Catherine Deneuve trivia might tell you that she was born in France right in Paris itself in 1943. She was born naturally into her chosen profession as both of her parents were actors. Her birth name was Dorleac, a name that her sister would perform under. She started working...
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Social Register, the original Facebook.
The news, last week, that the Encyclopædia Britannica was discontinuing its book edition seemed to signal a new world order—the decline of print, the surrendering of institutional hierarchies to the democracy of the Internet. But another transformation has occurred in recent months, with less fanfare: the . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Scousers
Clive Owen fans fall into a few categories. There are those (largely female) who like Owen for his looks. Then there are others (mostly male) who like his grizzled demeanor as an action hero in movies like “The International” and “Children of Men.” He seems rough . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Roberta’s, in Brooklyn.
paragraph class="noindent">This gourmet pizza place, located amid a desolate-looking stretch of warehouses in Bushwick, is often described as a D.I.Y. enterprise. The label is slightly ambiguous—aren’t a lot of other restaurant entrepreneurs doing it themselves, too? Carlo Mirarchi, the chef at Roberta’ . . ....
- César Aira: “The Musical Brain.”
I was a kid—I must have been four or five years old. This was in my home town, Coronel Pringles, at the beginning of the nineteen-fifties. One night, it must have been a Saturday, we’d gone to have dinner at the hotel; we didn’ . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Caffè Storico at the New-York Historical Society review.
paragraph class="noindent">A serious restaurant in a museum: what a good concept. Pioneered by MOMA, with the Modern, and spreading, with varying degrees of success, to the Whitney (Untitled), the Guggenheim (the Wright), and the Museum of Arts and Design (Robert), the formula, if executed well, can . . ....
- Osteopenia and Osteoporosis: Preventing Falls at Home
For people with osteopenia or osteoporosis, falls are especially scary. But many falls are also preventable. Here’s how to avoid falls where they happen most: at home....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Bohemian, in NoHo.
paragraph class="noindent">New York does exclusivity well, but Tokyo does it better. There is a Japanese phrase, “Ichigensama okotowari,” that’s used by owners of certain discriminating restaurants and shops, and means, roughly, “We respectfully decline first-time visitors.” In other words: walk-ins . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Bohemian, in NoHo.
paragraph class="noindent">New York does exclusivity well, but Tokyo does it better. There is a Japanese phrase, “Ichigensama okotowari,” that’s used by owners of certain discriminating restaurants and shops, and means, roughly, “We respectfully decline first-time visitors.” In other words: walk-ins . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: New York rallies for Haiti.
One of the effects that the earthquake in Haiti has produced in New York is the unfamiliar feeling of total geographic irrelevance: for the first few days, when damaged roads and ruined cell-phone towers made the island impenetrable, New York City seemed like a helpless, remote archipelago. And yet . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Quentin Rowan, a.k.a. Q. R. Markham, plagiarism addict.
Spy novels embrace clichés—the double agent, the bomb-rigged briefcase—and “Assassin of Secrets,” published last fall, made a virtue of this tendency, piling one trope onto another to create a story that rang with wry knowingness. The book is set in the . . ....
- Motor Racing Driver and Spy
William Charles Frederick Grover was born on January 16, 1903 in Montrouge, Paris, France. His father, Frederick Grover, was English and a horse breeder....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: What would Shakespeare say about WikiLeaks?
8220;A sincere diplomat,” Stalin once said, “is like dry water or wooden iron.” As any diplomat knows, the role requires a doubleness not just of message but of manner—an extra slathering of the flatteries and false civilities that grease the wheels of all human . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Patti Smith, Jonathan Lethem, and Steven Soderbergh finally get degrees.
Last Monday, Pratt Institute held its graduation ceremony at Radio City Music Hall. At 10 A.M., giddy graduates and their families milled around the auditorium, while, backstage, a breakfast buffet had been laid out for professors, administrators, and a handful of people with distinguished careers in the arts who were . . ....
- Lizzie Widdicombe: Ancient Philosophers and Greek debt.
The other night, with the Greek political system in a deadlock and the euro in jeopardy, members of the Hellenic Council of America, a group that promotes the culture of ancient Greece, hosted a lecture at the Stathakion Center, in Astoria. The speakers were M. A. Soupios and Panos Mourdoukoutas . . . (Subscription required.)...
- Car Importation and Registration in France
When moving to France, you will probably feel the need to bring your car with you, whether it is for a few weeks or for a permanent move. Since there has not been any synchronisation between European car registration systems, one should not believe that is fine to drive around France with a British car and a British registration plate....
